1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system such as a work station, a personal computer system or the like and, in particular, to an information processing system which has an encoding processing function to encode and output manuscript information and to reconstruct the encoded manuscript information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been widely used an information processing system such as a work station, a personal computer system or the like, and various kinds of information exchanges have been made by means of a network. It is possible to transfer manuscript information between work stations provided in the network. Also, manuscript information made up at a work station can be displayed and proofread on the screen of another work station, and the thus proofread manuscript information can be printed.
Also, a data base is connected to the network and data stored in the data base can be read out from the respective work stations freely or under a given condition.
The manuscript that has been transferred from a work station or the information that has been read out from the data base must be kept secret in some cases and thus, when the manuscript or information is printed and possessed, sufficient care must be given in keeping it.
As an information processing system which relates to such secret keeping, for example, in Japanese Utility Model Unexamined Publication No. Hei. 1-91378, there has been proposed an information processing system having an encoding processing function, in which, when the remaining amount of memory of a facsimile device decreases, manuscript information stored in an image memory is encoded and printed out to thereby secure the capacity of the image memory, after that at a time when the image memory has a sufficient capacity, the printed-out manuscript is set in a read device by an operator, and the encoded image information is then read and reconstructed.
However, when possessing the secret information, conventionally, the management of the secret information is entrusted to an operator, which makes it difficult to keep the secret information in a sure manner. Also, when possessing the encoded secret information, there arise the following problems:
(1) The encoded manuscript is difficult to manage because the content thereof cannot be deciphered. Also, since the encoded and recorded manuscript cannot be understood by a third person, there is a possibility that the encoded and recorded manuscript may be torn to pieces or thrown away.
(2) The encoded manuscript can be reconstructed by any person if it is read again by use of the exclusive device and, therefore, it is difficult to keep the encoded manuscript in secret.
(3) Position shift will occur when the encoded image information is printed out on recording paper and when the recording paper is read again, so that the image information finally obtained will be shifted in position.
(4) Only one encoding system is registered and thus it is relatively easy to decipher the information encoded in this system.